Mass Effect 3: A Guide to Challenges and How to Get the Awards Fast

So, I got my first challenge award today for “Biotic Mastery” – Complete 14 of the Biotic Mastery Challenges and I got the “Biotic God” banner for my game character :)

Anyway, it took quite a few matches to get the award, so for everyone else out there, here are few tips on how to get the awards faster:

1. Play on Gold/Platinum

The points/waves/extractions you earn on Gold/Platinum count toward Silver/Bronze challenges as well. For example, if you get a full extraction from Firebase White on Platinum, it will count for a full extraction on the same map on Gold/Silver/Bronze, too. The challenges this matters for are:

Squad Elite

Solo Mastery

Map Mastery

2. Use Damage-based Gear and Equipment

For all the challenges that require you to use powers or weapons, it’s not the number of times you use them, but the amount of damage dealt that is factored in. Using gear and equipment that increases your damage can double the speed at which you complete challenges if you do it right – for example, use the Adaptive War Amp and a Power Amplifier Module with an Adept. The challenges this matters for are:

Biotic Mastery

Tech Mastery

All the Alien and Weapon Challenges

3. Solo/Duo on Silver

The quickest way to level up damage-based challenges is to solo/duo on silver. That way, no one is stealing the damage you would do otherwise (think Biotic Charge and Nova) and you are less likely to die than on Gold/Platinum. You rack up the points fairly quickly doing this and you are able to use the powers/weapons necessary to complete your challenge.

Ok, so enough with the general tips – what are the easiest challenges to complete?

1. Combat Mastery

Combat Mastery

#/Points Reqd

Melee Damage

1

250000

2

500000

3

1000000

Over the Cover Grab

1

50

2

100

3

250

Headshots

1

250

2

500

3

1000

Grenade Damage

1

100000

2

200000

3

300000

Bioware just updated this so you have to complete all 12 tasks.

You only need to complete 9 out of 12 of these tasks – the easiest/fastest ones are the Grenade Damage, Headshots, and Melee Damage. Use your Demolisher Engineer with the Grenade Capacity upgrade and spam grenades for a few Gold/Platinum matches. For headshots, you actually have to kill enemies with headshots, not just shoot them, so you want to go for the Widow, Javelin, or any other one-shot-kill sniper rifle (depends on the level you play at). As for Melee Damage, using the Krogan is an easy way to do this – unfortunately, I don’t believe Shadow Strike counts towards this Melee challenge (judging by my point totals and how much I’ve played as the N7 Shadow).

2. Biotic Mastery

Biotic Mastery

#/Points Reqd

Biotic Explosions

1

50

2

250

3

500

Throw

50000

Pull

50000

Singularity

50000

Shockwave

50000

Warp

50000

Biotic Charge

50000

Reave

50000

Stasis

50000

Dark Channel

50000

Annihilation Field

50000

Biotic Slash

50000

Lash

50000

Nova

50000

For this challenge, you only need to complete 14 of the 16 options. Do everything but Stasis and Lash – because the goal is damage-based, you want to spam powers that deal the most damage to enemies and you can use most frequently. It’s easy to multi-task here with characters – use the Human Adept for Singularity, Shockwave, and Warp, use the Drell Adept for Pull and Reave (it’s faster/does more damage than the Asari Justicar), use the N7 Fury for Annihilation Field, Dark Channel, and Throw, use the N7 Slayer for Biotic Slash. All it took for me was 2-3 Silver solo matches with these each of these 4 characters to complete the challenge.

3. Tech Mastery

Tech Mastery

#/Points Reqd

Tech Explosions

1

50

2

250

3

500

Incinerate

50000

Overload

50000

Cryo Blast

25000

Combat Drone

50000

Tech Armor

25000

Energy Drain

50000

Sentry Turret

50000

Submission Net

50000

Flamer

50000

Shadow Strike

50000

Electric Slash

50000

Snap Freeze

50000

Geth Turret

50000

You only need to complete 13/16 of these tasks. The ones you should ignore are Tech Armor, Submission Net, and Geth Turret. I say this because the characters using Tech Armor and Submission Net don’t multitask and the Geth Turret actually does very little damage itself – the flamethrower option that most people attach to it does a lot of damage but when it does, it’s counted as Sentry Turret rather than Geth Turret damage. Geth Turret damage is only the little laser bullet it shoots at a distance. Use Geth Engineer for Overload and Sentry Turret (turn Hunter Mode on so you get a damage bonus). Use Quarian Female Engineer for Sentry Turret, Cryo Blast, and Incinerate. Use N7 Paladin for Energy Drain, Snap Freeze, and Incinerate. Use Vorcha for Flamer and N7 Shadow for Shadow Strike and Electric Slash – it should only take 1-2 solo Silver matches to complete their objectives.

Anyone else have any tips for completing the Challenges? Let me know in the comments!

My experience with over the cover grab:
1-pick a character with strong shield/barrier ( I picked Batarain brawler) with max health and shield. Gear Geth Scanner or shield enhancing.
2- Map Giant with Cerebrus bronze , solo match
3- Use LZ area barricades to hunt and kill till wave three .. do not use gun .. Bbrawler return melee helps you to prevent getting melee’d
4- go to command center room , always occupy the inner bench and move to the first one one troops take shelter…
I 40 grabs in one match till wave 4 ( I did not do the challenge but just kept on grabbing)
repeat process after wave 4 since later enemies cannot be grabbed ( dragoons, etc)

I do same as you but with krogan batlemaster on London. Its the best map for this as it is full of low cover that you can overcover with. Full armor and the geth plasma shotgun just to get rid of the Atlas and stunt the phantoms, Dragoon, I finish them with melee. But all the others just overcover grab. I do over a hundred ovorcover grab kills per game. Final trick… the three mission wave I prolonged them as long as the clock permits it. Depending of what the misson is I use the maximum time I can to get more kills. Get the objectives near the end the fastest you can but dont complete them until the last seconds.